From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 18 2000 - 10:25:09 EST
At 6:28 AM -0800 12/18/00, Alan B. Thomas wrote:
>Carl wrote this
>
>> I'm not sure I belong in this discussion, but I
>> think the answer to this is
>> that the statement is presented from the perspective
>> of one looking
>> backward at a pivotal event as a whole: an act of
>> love encompassed in an
>> act of giving.
>
>
>I am somewhat weak on the Linguistic side of this
>discussion, but I would agree that Carl could support
>his statement here. I would also say that more could
>be said, even the opposite of Carl's statement, to
>some degree.
>
>Namely, I would find it natural for a Greek to write
>of the reign of a king with either the Imperfect or
>Aorist (for 10 years he was reigning; or, he reigned
>10 years.)
I suspect that one is more likely to use the imperfect to indicate that the
king was reigning at the time when something else happened; in the GNT it
seems to me this most generally happens with a genitive absolute with a
present participle.
Upon checking usage of BASILEUW in the GNT, I find 21 instances of the
verb: 8 aorist indicatives, 5 future indicatives, 1 present indicative, 2
aorist infinitives, 1 present infinitive; 1 aorist subjunctive, 2 aorist
infinitives, 1 present infinitive, 1 present participle, and 1 present
imperative.
The only instance I find of a present indicative is Matt. 2:22 AKOUSAS DE
hOTI ARCILAOS BASILEUEI THS IOUDAIAS ANTI TOU PATROS AUTOU hHRWiDOU EFOBHQH
EKEIN APELQEIN ... Here clearly the imperfective is involved.
The only instance I can find that involves continuing reign is not
referring to the past but to a future point: 1 Cor 15:25 DEI GAR AUTON
BASILEUEIN ACRI hOU QHi PANTAS TOUS ECQROUS hUPO TOUS PODAS AUTOU.
>However, I do not think that the Aorist is an attempt
>to view the reign as a "single or complete" reign.
>That is, the Greek writer, immediately after stating
>that this king reigned (Aorist) 10 years, he might
>just as naturally identify a particular moment and
>discuss some detail during this 10 year reign. He
>might even discuss two specific details years apart,
>but all under the Aorist umbrella.
I wouldn't dispute this.
>The attempt to make the Aorist a "punctiliar" aspect I
>think is incorrect. If an event is point-like, then
>and only then do we have a punctiliar use, but even
>then I would say that is not inherently part of the
>Aorist. The punctiliar aspect would require an
>additional grammatical element to bring this aspect
>into the aoristic verbal phrase.
I have never used the term "punctiliar" and when I say "single and complete
event" I don't mean to imply that it must have occurred at 5:27 a.m. on
Monday, December 18, 2000; it may in fact have occurred over a period of
six weeks or six years; the aorist simply indicates that event as a single
event. And yes, if there's reason to do so, that event can be described
with an imperfect, but that's precisely a difference of "aspect."
>Returning then to John 3.16, I think Mark is
>essentially on the right trail, the "telic" nature of
>"he gave" would seem to imply that John has a specific
>act in mind. However, that act could span an interval
>of time, even include the entire earthly career of Jesus.
I wouldn't dispute that either and I don't think I wrote anything that was
meant to imply otherwise.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
cwconrad@ioa.com
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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